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Apr 13

22

Mick Philpott is serving life for the manslaughter of six of his seventeen children died in a house fire that he started. He had apparently not meant to kill anyone but was trying to secure welfare benefit payments.

According to The Sun newspaper, he is receiving mail from female admirers, some of whom include racy snaps of themselves in order to get his attention. The report claims he is deciding which mail he will reply to. Should the authorities allow him to be entertained by the results of such a despicable crime? He’s there to be rehabilitated and to be punished – not to read fan mail and look at saucy photos.

Where’s the maternal instinct of these women? What on earth are they looking to get out of it? I can understand morbid fascination but to do something about it, to engage the person is taking it a step too far. Some people have sent him money. This man was branded “disturbingly dangerous” by the court, following his conviction. Are they looking for infamy of their own but with the knowledge that the prison walls form a convenient barrier to a real meeting – or at least a meeting without prison guards present?

I would hope, at the age of 56 years, he will never be allowed out to meet anyone who has sent him such a communication but I would suggest extreme caution to these women. The way the courts operate, he’ll be out by Christmas and coming around for some turkey, looking to make some more children – and to him, a child is a benefit voucher.

Apr 13

13

Without talking about what she did during her time as Prime Minister, this week marks the passing of one of the most domineering leaders that the United Kingdom has ever seen. Baroness Margaret Thatcher was a marmite premier, that’s for sure. She continues to generate strong feelings and opinions even today, over twenty years after she resigned. People loved or hated her. Some people who were children or not even born still have cause to interact with her resonance long after she stepped down. Who remembers her successor, John Major? He was Prime Minister five days after Thatcher’s resignation in November 1990 until he lost the election to Labour in 1997. He was so ineffectual and empty that I could not believe how long he had held the reins of power when I looked up the dates. Unfortunately, he was the sign of things to come.

Whether you like or dislike what she did, there can be no question over her leadership qualities. Like Churchill in the war, she was in charge and determined in her methodology and direction.

Consider the appeasement and ineptitude of the people that followed. John Major was portrayed as grey in the satirical show, Spitting Image, because he was so dull and uninspiring. They should have made him invisible but that would not have made very good television. He failed to settle the euro skeptic wars within his party and committed them to the political wilderness for many years through his lack of leadership. Tony Blair was everything that is to dislike about politicians: he said what he thought people wanted to hear in order to win votes. He appeared to me to have only leadership qualities in staying alive and trying to keep his party popular. You could argue that this is what his job is but it means he has no legacy, other than the Iraq war and in handing over the reins to his running mate, Gordon Brown, a man clearly not able to run the country – as he proved, ever so admirably. Gordon Brown, the man who deregulated the City, encouraged the City to continue to innovate and then blamed them for the mess that followed, losing the election and disappearing into lucrative non-executive directorships and after-dinner speaking. Then there is David Cameron, who is Tony Blair with a different colour tie. A word on Nick Clegg, a democrat so lacking in principles that he would jump straight into bed with the Tories to have a taste of power, destroying the long term prospects of his party. Why would he do that? He and his immediate circle know this is the most he could ever have expected from the aptly coloured yellow party. Not a single leader with balls among them. If that lady was not for turning, whether she faced your direction or not – each of the above are administrators with power – with enough faces to keep them one step ahead of the political reaper.

To those who are celebrating her death, this was an old lady who had dementia for years, living without her husband for nearly 10 years of that. Death was probably a welcome relief. Whether you celebrate and were affected directly or indirectly by her policies or just disagreed with her, you should be ashamed. The release of “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” song is an embarrassment to humanity. Let it go.